Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

AP Photo/Ronald Lizik
Bye Bye

You'll FINALLY be able to remove most of those annoying iPhone stock apps

iOS 10 will let you remove most of Apple’s stock apps like Maps, Contacts, Mail and Music.

ONE OF THE biggest complaints about the iPhone and iOS is how it manages to include numerous apps that cannot be removed.

Apps like Stocks, Weather, iBooks, Tips and Watch app are all included and there’s no way to remove them. The only (indirect) way you could deal with them was to put them all into a folder so they don’t take up space on your home screen.

Until now, that is. As part of the next version, iOS 10 will let you remove the vast majority of standard Apple apps from your phone.

The company’s iOS 10 beta page says you can remove these apps from the Home screen:

Calculator, Calendar, Compass, Contacts, FaceTime, Find My Friends, Home, iBooks, iCloud Drive, iTunes Store, Mail, Maps, Music, News, Notes, Podcasts, Reminders, Stocks, Tips, Videos, Voice Memos, Watch app, and Weather.

iOS 10 removable apps Apple Apple

However, Apple warns that removing these built-in apps from your home screen can “affect other system functionalities”.

If an app uses Apple Maps or takes information from the Weather app, it won’t work until you install it again although this could change once iOS 10 is released and developers get used to the idea.

The other thing is there are certain apps you cannot remove like Safari, Health, Photos, Clock, Settings and Camera. These apps are essential to core iPhone – for example, the camera app is integrated with the lock screen and Health includes Medical ID and ICE – so removing them would cause a number of headaches.

The developer preview of iOS 10 is available to download now with a public beta arriving next month. The official release will happen in September, usually after Apple’s major iPhone event.

Apple announced a number of new features for iOS 10 last night at its developer conference WWDC including updates to its messaging service, a redesigned lock and notifications screen, improvements to Photos and opening up Siri to third-party developers.

Read: These are the big features that are coming to your iPhone >

Read: This Irish college is tackling a major problem with cybercrime >

Your Voice
Readers Comments
11
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.